Intrinsic said:
I don't understand what you are saying though. So my answer to you may not touch on what you mean. But my point is that they didn't have 4M at launch. No condole launch ever has. EVER. it has NEVER happened. I would have thought this concept is easy to understand. The holiday window lasts 2 MONTHS. More like 6-7 weeks in reality. If you are supply constrained 3-4 months after launch, meaning you are pretty much selling every console you make. And in those 3-4 months you only managed to ship/sell 4.7M consoles; then it means your manufacturing prowess for whatever reason was not such that you could make those consoles faster. You were doing the best you could to meet demand. How does anyone expect a company that hasn't been able to met demand fully almost 8 months after launch, to somehow make enough consoles to have a better launch during a 6 week window? And I ask again, can anyone show me a console in the last 30 years that had up to 4M consoles available in its launch week? Even the PS2 didn't have that. Speaking of the PS2... that too launched in march.... in just one territory. |
Hey man, my point was just that if a company had 4M at launch it would mean that it was holding the release for to long, instead of launching couple months earlier. And yes you are right that if someone have a hard time to produce 7M on 3 months prior to launch plus 8 months after launch then having 4M ready for launch wouldn't be feasible.
Miyamotoo said:
Totally disagree again, fact is that consoles sell much better during holiday season in any case and that of course goes for launch of consoles also, offcourse that theoretically any same console would sell more during holiday season compared to any other launch date and espacily March. Lol, you do realise that when company makes launch than make plan how much units they will prepare for launch, and of course they can sell much more units for Holiday launch compared to March launch, and of course that Nintendo would prepare much more Switch stocks if they were launching console during holiday season. Imagine that PS4 has stock of 10m for launch, when would sell more units, during launch in Holiday season or during launch in March, offcourse that much more consoles would be sold during holiday season in any case. We cant know that Switch would sell 4m consoles on launch in March,for PS4 are much higher chances because it launched during holiday season because people much easier spend plenty of money. People who go in lines up days before the release are actually small part of buyers during holiday season, during holiday season families, casuals, kids...for self or like gift, also buying consoles, not just fans.
Lol, coming from man that refuse evre posibilete for things that are not even ofical and talking like evrething is set in stone. :D Just for record, Nintendo never didnt said they couldn't produce more than 2m for Switch launch, just that initial plan was to prepare 2m for launch and that they later had problem to incrase taht nubmer. And yes, they could work to prepare more units for launch if launch was during holiday season if that was plan from start, but we know from start that plan for Switch launch in march was to ship 2m units. Like usualy you missing point, and point is simple Nintendo would aim to prepare more units for launch if launch is during holiday season, they from start were preparing only 2m consoles for Switch launch because they launch console in March not during Holiday season, but problem was that console were selling better than they thought and soon they had stock problems. |
Yes I'll deny any possibility of a company throwing away money for no good reason. For they to have 4M available at launch they would have to postpone launch for some months and incur in unecessary cost. And again as Intrisic have put no company have done this, but for some reason Nintendo that couldn't produce enough to meet demand because of part constraint would do it just to win your argument.
Shadow1980 said:
We can clearly see that Q1 releases tend more toward a "hockey stick" curve as they rapidly decline towards baseline sales (this is most pronounced on the 3DS & PS4). Meanwhile, the holiday releases are more erratic, usually showing a boost or stabilization of sorts during the holidays. The DS & PSP, both December releases, saw a dip in Week 2 before increasing again up through Christmas week, then sales started to drop towards baseline after New Years. The PS3 had an undulating wave-like curve during its launch holiday season. The Wii saw spikes in Week 4 (the week ending Christmas Eve) and Week 6 (New Year's week). Finally, the Wii U exhibited a "downwards stairs" curve. As a result of the holidays tending to stall the post-launch decline towards baseline sales for systems released in that time of year, Q1 releases see their first-week sales represent a larger share of early-life sales:
On average, Week 1 represented 52% of sales in the first five weeks for the Q1 releases, while for holiday releases that number drops to 35%. This continues to hold true even if we extend that range of weeks:
That's an average Week 1 share of 41% for Q1 releases but only 26% for holiday releases. Let's extend it all the way to 26 weeks, giving us half a year of sales:
And we see an average share of 22.7% for Q1 releases but only 16.8% for holiday releases. We start to see significant outliers in this ten-system sample at this point: the PS4 and Wii U. Both were systems that had reasonably good launch weeks but had dreadful baseline sales early on, which incidentally were roughly equal to each other, as we see in this comparison of sales for the first 39 weeks/9 months:
But those first five weeks favored the Wii U, because it was a holiday launch while the PS4 was released in February. That resulted in the PS4 running at a somewhat semi-stable deficit for a while, taking over a year for it to start to fully reverse the trend, close the gap, and surpass the Wii U in LTD sales:
Of course, this is just Japan. I started with them because their sales trackers track sales on a weekly basis. NPD only tracks sales on a monthly basis. However, an examination of NPD data heavily suggests similar trends. While systems are more likely to release in Q4 in North America, we still have several major systems released in the past 20 years that launched before Q4: the Dreamcast, GBA, PSP, 3DS, and Switch. Whenever a system releases prior to October, it always exhibits a pronounced drop in its second month. This does not really happen with Q4 launches. The largest November-to-December drop proportionally of any November launch system was the PS4, which saw a 24.3% drop, yet even that wasn't enough to keep it from having the second-largest first December of any Q4 launch system (the XBO edges it out), and the PS4's first December was over 3.18 times larger than the January following it. Now it is true that all three home consoles released last gen were November launches and had weak launches relative to their baseline levels thanks to supply constraints (and high price in the PS3's case), but they nevertheless did not see any big drops in December; had they had sufficient supply to meet demand, their launches would have been much better, but we probably wouldn't have seen dramatic improvements to sales in their first full calendar year (well, except maybe the Wii). Meanwhile, the smallest drop any of the listed pre-Q4 systems saw in its second month was the PSP, which saw a 43.4% drop from its launch month to its second month. Every other system saw sales drop by more than half in their second month. Here's every launch month to second month drop for Gen 6-8 systems launched prior to Q4: DC: -70% TL;DR: Launching during the holidays does have a clear, demonstrable effect on sales, with an obvious causal mechanism in play. This tends to favor Q4 launches when comparing LTD sales, at least for early-life sales (the effect does of course wear off over time). |
Your numbers are perfect but on the TL;DR it would also be interesting to note that consoles that were fully unavailable (backorder only) for several months after launch would sell as much as produced independent of the release window, so if they were constrained the amount sold is basically irrelevant.
duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"
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